


Rebirth

by Vodnici



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Short, Thinkpiece, i just had a thought the other day and wanted to write a short blurp about it, idk nothing really happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vodnici/pseuds/Vodnici
Summary: It was quite easy to lose hope and the willingness to keep fighting in such a bleak, unforgiving world, but there was some kind of solace in knowing that the planet itself would fight for what had always belonged to it; that an apocalypse for humanity was a rebirth for nature.





	Rebirth

   Funny thing, nature. It has a remarkable ability to bounce back from nearly everything. Clementine had never really taken the time to observe nature around her, because she constantly had to be vigilant for what could jump _out_ at her _from_ nature. It had become so ingrained in her to view foliage as nothing but hiding spots, either for her or for someone intending to harm her, that she had forgotten its real purpose: simply existing. Being alive. Keeping the _world_ alive. She could still faintly remember going to the beach with her parents to swim and build sandcastles, into the forest with her teachers and classmates to draw leaves and study bugs, and visiting the pond near her house to try to catch tadpoles. Nature had been something to enjoy back then, something you could relax in for leisure. Now, letting your guard down in a forest could mean your death.

   But the forest didn’t care. The beach didn’t care. The pond didn’t care. Each and every one did they continue to live; continue to exist after the outbreak.

   And how they thrived.

   Clementine had noticed the overgrown buildings in abandoned cities and towns, and the decaying walker carcasses, and the skeletons picked clean by scavenging animals, and the flowers and the trees and the bushes all covering the things that used to make up society; cars rusting, pavement and asphalt cracking, houses collapsing under years of neglect and lack of upkeep. Nature was slowly reclaiming what humanity had stolen from it. Even once domesticated animals that had lost their owners or been left behind had long since returned to their feral states. Clementine reluctantly recalled the ferocity in the eyes of the dog that had bitten her all those years ago, only for a scrap of food. She didn’t want to imagine what a whole, hungry decade must have done to the millions of pets roaming the world – and what, or who, would succumb to them.

   But as she had told AJ when he had asked what a crow was doing pecking at a dead walker: they were only surviving, just as the last fragments of humanity were trying to do. What anyone and anything was trying to do.

   And survive they did – the animals, and Clementine and AJ. Clementine wasn’t going to let this new, perilous reality tear her down, and if it did, she would go down kicking and screaming. It was quite easy to lose hope and the willingness to keep fighting in such a bleak, unforgiving world, but there was some kind of solace in knowing that the planet itself would fight for what had always belonged to it; that an apocalypse for humanity was a rebirth for nature, and that life would go on, stronger than before, in the face of this harsh existence.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short thinkpiece I wrote in a couple of hours based on an idea I had after a conversation in the Discord server. I realised that nature must thrive now that humans aren't destroying and polluting it as they did before, and eventually it will have reclaimed everything humanity took from it. I think it's interesting. Thank you for reading!


End file.
